A wide range of industrial lifting equipment and products are available for transferring items in a warehouse or manufacturing environment. Such lifting equipment includes vertical lifts, scissor lifts, stackers, pallet jacks, pallet trucks, cranes, forklifts, and telescopic lifts. Such devices may be powered or unpowered and may be used to transfer items from a first location to a second location. Devices where the operator “walks” while operating the device are typically referred to as a “Walkie” whereas devices that are ridden while being operated are typically referred to as a “rider.” Such devices can have many names. Forklifts, for example, are also known as lift trucks, stacker trucks, trailer loader, side loaders, fork truck, tow motor, and fork hoist. A list of common lift truck types include: hand pallet trucks, walkie low lift trucks (powered pallet truck, usually electrically powered), Rider low lift truck, towing tractor, walkie stacker, rider stacker, reach truck (small forklift, designed for small aisles, usually electrically powered, so-named because the forks can extend to reach the load), electric counterbalanced truck, IC counterbalanced truck, sideloader, telescopic handler, walkie Order Picking truck, rider order picking truck (commonly called an “Order Picker”; like a small forklift, except the operator rides up to the load and transfers items article by article; i.e. operator is lifted to elevated racks where he “picks” items to fill a customer “order”), Articulated Very Narrow Aisle Counterbalanced trucks (commonly called “Flexi or Bendi Truck”), Guided Very Narrow Aisle truck—‘Man Down’ (a type of reach truck designed for aisles less than five feet wide) and ‘Man Riser’ Combination Pickle Picker/Stacker truck, and Truck Mounted Forklift/Sod Loader.
All the above devices represent the group of powered and unpowered industrial devices used to lift and transport materials. One type of machine of particular interest in this document is often referred to as a stacker. Prior art stackers are typically a manually maneuvered device that is used to raise or lower a product to a specific elevation. The vertical action can be either powered or manual. Stackers are generally configured to interface with a pallet supporting goods in a stable fashion while being stored. Restated, a pallet (sometimes called a skid) is a flat transport structure that supports items/goods in a stable fashion while being lifted by devices including stackers, forklifts, pallet jacks, and front loaders.
Pallets are often stacked on top of one another and form the structural foundation of a unit load which provides handling and storage efficiencies. Goods or shipping containers are often placed on a pallet secured with strapping, stretch wrap or shrink wrap and shipped. A stacker is typically configured to transfer a pallet form one location to another as well as stack pallets on top of one another.
Such devices work well for their intended purposes, however, there are functions that none do well, if at all. One such function relates to transferring individual items from a pallet. Prior art stackers are not configured to remove one item from a plurality of items being stored on the pallet. Restated, none of the above devices provide the capability of interfacing with a pallet (or similar storage device) storing a plurality of items and transferring the pallet containing said plurality of items to a new location, if necessary, and then selectively transferring one of said plurality of items from the pallet to a new location off the pallet.
For example, suppose a pallet is being used to store thirty 50 lb boxes and an operator wishes to move such pallet from its current location to a new work location and then remove one box from the pallet and transfer it to a new, off pallet, location. Prior art devices may be used to move the pallet to a new location but they do not have the capability of removing an individual 50 lb box from the pallet and transferring it to the new location off the pallet. Thus, the operator must be capable of manually picking up and moving the 50 pound box. Indeed, a plurality of workers may be required to move an individual item, depending on the weight of the item and the strength of the workers, putting such workers at higher risk of injury.
Various attributes of the invention disclosed herein addresses such shortcomings.